Breathe
by jhvh777
Summary: He had to keep his Op safe, no matter what. Set during Axess 18.


_So here's the first story that I've written in quite a while. Just a quick little one-shot set during Axess episode 18. The person talking should be easy to tell. Please read and review, I really want feedback from this one._

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He couldn't tell where the battle tides had turned. One moment he and his op were fighting the dark gray navi, shooting, slashing, trying to land a hit, and now they were trapped; brown plastic slowly wrapping ever tighter around their shared body, cutting painfully into their neck. His op would be dead if it weren't for the protective armor that he provided while crossed fused, so despite warnings and attempts for his program to save itself, he remained.

They helplessly scan the room, searching for any sign of their new partner, but there is none. Hopefully he has gone to get help. They close their eyes as the pain begins to become unbearable. One of the ever moving tape reels moves slowly up their face, covering their chin, their mouth, their nose. Panic wells up in direct proportion to the amount of air the two are not receiving. They grab the tape, pulling, trying to get it to loosen, but it is like trying to fight a python when you are already caught. He feels his op start to lose consciousness and his panic increases, as does his grip on the cross fusion program. If they were to fall out, that would be the end of the bubbly brunette.

Forcing his body to move, he attempts to find any sign of his partner. There! Up in the corner, is that an open staircase? One that leads to the roof? A sense of cold dread settles deep in his stomach as his op's body fails to maintain consciousness If his partner is on the roof, then there is a large possibility that he won't make it back in time to save them. Pushing this morbid thought away, he checks the cross fusion program. The bars are all in the red; if this keeps up much longer he won't have the energy to compensate for the lack of help from his op, he would be heavily damaged if lucky, and deleted if not.

He weakly attempts to pull the tape from his face; he heard the gray navi say something about the "end of the reel". Quickly thinking back to the videos his op watches, he mentally hears the snap that comes from the end of rewinding. That blow now would most likely snap his ops neck, armor or no. The bonds around their body are now so tight that if cross fusion were to fail, his ops body would be crushed in an instant. He feels the reel slowing down as his navi body takes damage from the sheer pressure. The pain makes his body try to retreat, but he quickly closes those programs. Better him than his op; he had been deleted before and they brought him back, rebooted him. You can't do that with a frail human.

Suddenly the bands stop their tightening. He hears the gray navi say something to him, but can't understand. Thinking has become a chore, and vital systems are now starting to show damage. Without warning the gray navi disappears. Their body hits the floor, he trying to take most of the damage, to leave his op as unharmed as possible. As soon as all the danger is gone, he allows his program to retreat to his PET to try and repair itself. He sees his op laying peacefully as his PET crashes to the floor, and he enters sleep mode.

---

He regains consciousness later that night. He hears his op vehemently cursing his new partner under his breath. Apparently he had gotten a lecture on how cross fusing is not the best thing in the world, and that he should be more careful. He notes that his systems have been completely repaired, and he realizes that his thought programs are a bit slow rebooting. He opens his eyes. His op was pouring over a textbook, actually doing his homework, or at least attempting. He didn't think that a picture of Godzilla eating their new partner had anything to do with math, but he could be wrong. He tries to think of what got him in this state, and he must have made a noise as the memory of the battle hit him because his op looked up.

"I'm sorry," he says as he abandons the paper and book, reaching to take the PET off the charger. "I was careless and just about got you deleted. I had to get Papa to repair some of your memory sectors, so don't worry if you can't remember today." He nodded as he noticed something off about the way his op looked. There is a large bandage around his ops neck, and he can see some more peaking out of the cuffs of his sleeves. His op looks down at his injuries and laughs sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head. "Laika took me to the hospital on the way home and they wouldn't let me leave until they wrapped everything up. I told them I was fine, but they didn't buy that. Mama just about had a heart attack when she saw me walk in. Good news is I get the rest of the week off from school!" He chuckles and shakes his head slightly at the small cheer that his op had just done. The vacation was probably Mama's idea; no need scaring his op's friends and teacher when they aren't supposed to really know that they are Net Saviors in the first place. A quick reminder to his op that would have to do a _lot_ of makeup work stops the cheering in its tracks, and gives way to whining. He just smiles and leans back, thankful that his op is okay.

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_So what do you think? _


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